


Her Smell

by grimeysociety



Series: Her Smell [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alpha Steve Rogers, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Dom/sub Undertones, Dubious Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Omega Darcy Lewis, Resolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:40:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22143496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grimeysociety/pseuds/grimeysociety
Summary: When Jane moves overseas and leaves Darcy behind and unemployed, she decides to lie about her status as an Omega to work for the Avengers Initiative.
Relationships: Darcy Lewis/Steve Rogers
Series: Her Smell [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1596010
Comments: 61
Kudos: 656





	Her Smell

**Author's Note:**

> Don't look at me like that. This was bound to happen.
> 
> Thank you to sarahbeniel for saving this story about ten times as I wrote this. Thank you to zephrbabe as well for enabling me.

_You've got me in your clutches_  
 _And I can't break free_  
 _You're getting to be a habit_  
\- **"You're Getting to Be a Habit With Me" by Diana Krall**

_Stupidly think you had it under control_  
 _Strapped down to something that you don't understand_  
 _Don't know what you were getting yourself into_  
 _You should have known, secretly I think you knew_  
\- **"Beggin For Thread" by BANKS**

_Ring all the bells sing and tell the people that be everywhere that the flower has come_  
 _Light up the sky with your prayers of gladness and rejoice for the darkness is gone_  
 _Throw off your fears let your heart beat freely at the sign that a new time is born_  
\- **"Les Fleurs" by Minnie Riperton**

Darcy knew she was an almost perfect fit for the job.

She was attentive, nurturing, intelligent and highly adaptable. The rest of it, the parts of her that she’d hidden from everyone but her immediate family for the majority of her life, those were pesky little things that made her imperfect.

As she signed the bottom of her contract, she was committing fraud. She knew her body well enough to know that lying about her Beta status, or lack thereof, was a minor problem. There was the more immediate danger of being left behind, unemployed and up to her ears in bills because Jane couldn’t guarantee her a title at her new lab in Húsavík.

She hadn’t had a heat cycle in more than five years, which was long enough to deem her no longer capable of mating with an Alpha, at least according to the diagnostic requirements in the numerous medical journals she’d consulted over the years.

She applied for the Avengers Initiative assistant role through blatant nepotism since she knew Thor, and she waltzed through the phone interview by just dropping the words “London” and “Dark Elves” within the same breath.

She was not registered as an Omega. Those who were born that way could apply for government subsidized suppressants when they reached puberty. Omegas were not obligated to register officially or openly, however the Avengers post required her to disclose her status for safety reasons. It didn’t take a genius to figure out why this information was critical. There were unmated Alphas within the Avengers.

So she lied, multiple times. In her interview and on paper. There was a video of her saying it with a straight face. To everyone there, she was a Beta, too occupied with work to bother finding an Alpha or Omega to bond with somehow.

-

To deal with whatever worst case scenario that could come from her own web of lies, Darcy moved into the Tower and promptly hit up her old weed dealer, Cedric.

It was an interesting way to examine one’s life – looking at the early years of her twenties from the perspective of her later ones. She recognized a complete lack of order to her old self, whereas now she at least was smart enough to buy suppressants.

She hadn’t done that when she was in Thor’s presence years ago, when he first crashed into Puente Antiguo. In her defense, she was going through a dumbass phase of sorts. She’d applied for the internship with Jane and Erik, and she hadn’t been in heat for three years. She only learned that Thor was an Alpha after he first began to show interest in Jane. She wasn’t a match for him anyway - it was as if her own body didn’t want her to ruin that opportunity for her boss _slash_ best friend. It seemed she was physically incapable of luring anyone.

Cedric met with her in the park, offering her all types of pills before he finally handed over the package of suppressants. There was enough for three months and Darcy asked how much he wanted for them.

“Eight hundred.”

“ _What?”_ she snapped, and then she lowered her voice to a harsh whisper. “That’s extortion!”

“It’s a third less than what they go for elsewhere,” he retorted, a grin forming on his face that made Darcy want to slap him. “And if you’re asking me for them, you’re desperate.”

“I’m not that desperate,” she grumbled, taking out her phone to open her PayPal. “I thought we had some kind of special arrangement –”

“You haven’t hit me up in eighteen months. Stop pretending like you give a shit about my enterprise.”

“Enterprise?” she repeated, tapping out her password, shaking her head. “ _Enterprise_ …”

“Yeah!” Cedric added. “I’m doing pretty well, all things considered. You want something else? Are you doing your Masters yet?”

“No!” Darcy snapped, her hand outstretched as the green tick appeared on her screen to signify the exchange. “Stop trying to get me hooked on something else.”

“You know, weed being a gateway drug is a complete lie,” he muttered, finally putting the bag in her hand before taking out a cigarette.

He lit it, taking a long drag and exhaling while Darcy dispersed the smoke with a swift wave of her hand, her face pinching with irritation.

“What makes you say that?”

“You never came back for anything stronger,” he said, and Darcy narrowed her eyes.

“Did you think maybe it was your customer service?” she said, and he smirked.

“I knew I always liked you,” he said, and Darcy pushed off the bench, shoving the bag into her coat pocket.

“Yeah, yeah,” she muttered, walking off without another look back at Cedric.

-

She was supposed to be helping the Avengers be civilians whenever they came home. It meant making coffee, reminding people to feed their cats, scraping them from off the floor.

She met them all within two days of moving into the Tower. There was no big conference or some type of ceremony. She was given a key card and a series of numbers in case of an emergency and she walked into the common room with her new lanyard to find three of them sprawled across the couches in varying states of consciousness.

“Hi – oh,” she said, and Natasha Romanoff lifted her chin from her chest, her arms crossed as she sat upright in her armchair, Clint Barton lying upside down on the couch next to her, while Tony Stark lay spreadeagled on the carpet next to the coffee table.

Romanoff’s eyebrows lifted.

“Hello.”

“Darcy Lewis,” Darcy said, her hand raised as she walked over before stopping behind the couch Barton was lying on.

She noted the marks on their faces, the dried blood and smears of dirt and grime. She’d been handed a little package with a memo on their weekend’s events, which included an infiltration of a HYDRA cell in Belgium.

“I remember you,” Barton mumbled without opening his eyes, and Darcy frowned.

“Pardon me?”

“I watched you, few years back,” he said, sitting upright, stretching his arms with a loud yawn. “ _Ah_ … you drink too much coffee…”

“Well, you put dirty boots on couches,” she retorted, and she saw Natasha’s smirk in the corner of her eye.

She’d read the files. Clint Barton was mated, married with children. If he was the Alpha, she was glad to have the suppressants now, eight-hundred dollars poorer, rather than be sorry about it later. She’d read plenty of stories of tussles occurring because Omegas were irresistible to Alphas when they were both in heat. It was the plot to story after story, movie after movie, tabloid trash article after tabloid trash article.

“And by ‘watch’, I’m sure you mean the assignment you were given after Thor left the first time,” she went on, taking the hand Barton offered her to shake. “Unless I’m uncovering some kind of extracurricular peeping.”

“No,” he said, smirking. “How is Thor, by the way?”

“I have no idea,” she said. She glanced at Stark on the floor. “Is he dead?”

“Almost,” replied the billionaire, and he sat up with a groan. “Isn’t it a little too early for a prodding? I mean, from a professional point of view?”

“No,” Darcy said. She took out the papers stapled together from a file in her bag. She began to hand the stacks to the three of them. “According to your check-in times, you’ve been here at least nine hours, so I’m guessing you’ve had enough sleep to tackle the paperwork.”

“Boo,” Stark retorted, and she threw his papers so they landed in his lap.

“Where’s the others? Banner and Rogers?” she asked, and Romanoff’s eyebrows lifted.

“Good luck with that,” Barton said with a chuckle, and Darcy tilted her head.

“Thank you,” she said. “I don’t need luck for this type of thing. I’ve made a Nobel Prize-nominated workaholic take a nap when she was in the middle of a breakthrough.”

“That sounds terrible,” Stark muttered. “I mean, every part of that sentence is making me want to jump off the balcony.”

“There’s a form for that, too,” she said. “Life insurance.”

There was a flash of something in his eyes that Darcy detected as her catching his attention, and she considered what she already knew about Stark as well. If he was the Alpha, she was sure he wasn’t likely to want her out of choice, either. He was engaged to Pepper Potts, their relationship spoken about often enough in the society pages.

“But you have to do that _before_ you jump,” she added.

She had the feeling she’d be doing this a lot if no-one was going to give her a hint of some kind. She thought about it being Romanoff, but that was less relevant to her – she wasn’t interested in women that way, Alpha or otherwise. They would make one hell of a couple, though, if Romanoff would have her.

“Bruce will be out for another two hours at least,” Romanoff said, steering the conversation away from candid chats about suicide. “He’ll be in his suite.”

If Bruce Banner was the Alpha, that would be a cruel twist of fate for every party, and Darcy had no idea how that type of mating would occur. If the Hulk was somehow involved with it, knotting would be impossible. She hoped to God he was at least a Beta.

It wasn’t her business. The more she thought about it, the more depressing the tales began to spin in her head as she went about the rest of the morning.

-

She was unable to find Captain Rogers. He seemed to evade all attempts of catching him to deliver paperwork. It wasn’t until after her dinner that she decided to venture out again to find him, going to the common room after finding the gym empty of a super soldier.

She found the archer again, this time nursing a beer, his dirty boots now resting on the coffee table in front of him.

“You finish that paper work?” she asked, instead of greeting him.

“Maybe,” he said, he glanced away from the TV, his eyes ducking to her t-shirt. “You… up past your bedtime?”

“What’s wrong with my pajamas?” she asked, and his brows hiked.

“Nothin’,” he muttered.

His expression didn’t come across as lecherous, maybe a little surprised at what she’d managed to hide beneath her jacket earlier. Her t-shirt left little to the imagination, the material stretched across her ample chest.

His eyes had swung back to the TV while she silently fumed, her retort dying on her tongue as she heard the footfalls behind her and she turned, going still.

Steve Rogers had walked in, minus the outfit Darcy tended to see him in on the news. He wore a t-shirt and jeans under a leather jacket, carrying what she guessed was the paperwork she’d given to Romanoff to pass on, the stack furled because he was holding it like a baton in his large fist. His eyes met hers and she saw the slight frown that disappeared a breath later.

She heard Barton clear his throat and ask:

“You alright?”

She looked at him, realizing the question was directed toward her. Her eyes swung to meet Rogers’.

“I don’t know. Am I?”

“Are you?” Rogers asked, and she felt the hairs stand up on the back of her neck.

She was experiencing a different version of him than what she initially expected, his eyes shrewd and trained on her, unblinking.

“You finish the paperwork Romanoff gave you?”

“Yeah,” he replied, handing it to her. “You gonna try to make me fill that out every time someone sneezes?”

She glanced down at the papers, seeing lines of neat writing, her frown deepening.

“If it’s HYDRA sneezing, sure,” she said.

She didn’t want to give the impression that he’d rattled her, but she felt her face flush automatically. She would chalk that up to an immediate physical attraction, because he was easy on the eyes. His shape, wrought with masculine strength, was an obvious draw, but his eyes were what made her openly stare. They had too much focus, at least, too much for her to be comfortable under his gaze. He towered over her, seeing all of her. He seemed to make an assessment within seconds before looking away, moving to walk through down the hallway to the kitchens, and Darcy watched him leave, her eyes dipping to his ass before she looked back toward Barton, who’d caught her staring at his team leader.

“Hmm.”

“Your life insurance up to date, Barton?” she snapped, narrowing her eyes.

He took it as an empty threat, sipping his beer without another word. She drew in a breath and sighed, stalking off down the hallway. She found Steve alone at the kitchen counter, a loaf of bread open. He was spreading peanut butter on half a dozen slices, stacking them as he went.

He didn’t look up from his food and Darcy pointed to a space he hadn’t written anything on.

“You want to explain why you left this blank, Captain?” she asked.

“Is this first day jitters?” he asked, and she frowned.

“What?”

“I caught some of the conversation before,” he said, finishing the last of the stack before moving the plate toward the stools and he sat down, barely missing Darcy along the way. She stepped aside, her face burning. “Something about you making your last boss take a nap –”

“How’d you catch -?”

He gestured to his ear with a finger, finally looking up to meet her gaze.

“I haven’t read your file much,” she admitted, and he nodded. “There’s a lot to cover.”

“There’s a gap of about seventy years,” he said dryly, and Darcy blinked.

“Yeah, well –”

“I left it out because I prefer not to lie,” he said, nodding at the papers she held in her hand. “And I’m guessing it’s first day jitters, makin’ you so attentive with the paperwork.”

“What weren’t you going to lie about?” she said, glancing over the question he’d avoided answering.

**_Were any injuries sustained from the mission?_ **

Her brows lifted, and she gave him a quick glance. He didn’t resemble the others.

“You weren’t hurt?”

“I heal fast,” he said, before shoving a sandwich into his mouth. He chewed and swallowed. “I don’t usually answer that question, post-mission.”

“So lying by omission,” Darcy said, and there was a slight quirk of his lips at her tone. “Do you not disclose because you somehow think there’s a shortage of medical resources?”

“No, I just don’t need the fuss,” he muttered, and he began to chew more.

She remembered the day the news broke that Captain America had been found on the ice, and he was alive. For years, Darcy only thought of him as a legend. There was the conspiracy theory that Captain America had died years before being declared M.I.A., and that the Army had lied about him for decades about his powers. Darcy never had an opinion about Captain America, she was more interested in the man sitting in front of her now.

If his reputation around SHIELD for being a stubborn shit was anything to go by, he was always going to be like this with her, one way or another.

He didn’t want help because he didn’t think he needed it, simple as that. He thought he’d be lying if he wrote otherwise on the form.

She sighed, and she felt his eyes on her again.

“First day jitters,” she muttered, and she rolled her eyes. There was no point lying to him, since he saw straight through her.

“How’s it been?” he asked, which surprised her.

She rose a hand to run it through her hair, shrugging.

“I don’t know what I expected. I came back because… because I don’t have a lot of other options,” she admitted.

Steve swallowed, frowning a little as he sat back.

“You seem young. Smart.”

“Thanks.”

“I meant, the options are wide open to you,” he went on, and Darcy’s brow lifted.

“Gee, thanks, Dad,” she muttered.

He gave a little chuckle and Darcy found herself smiling, too. He ducked his head, nodding.

“Yeah, I deserve that,” he said. “I don’t mean to be patronizing.”

She didn’t know what else to say, and by the way he’d gone silent, too, she sensed it was time to back off. She’d already pushed him enough. She glanced down at the papers.

“I’ll leave you to it,” she murmured, and she moved to leave.

“Goodnight, Darcy,” she heard him reply, his voice soft.

She exited without looking back, biting her lip when she was alone in the hallway, holding her breath until she’d walked through the living room, ignoring Barton. She only drew in a breath when she reached the elevator, pressing the button as she let out her shaky breath.

She felt unsettled. Something was distinctly off. She ran a hand through her hair again, slipping into the elevator car when it finally arrived, unfurling the papers once more to read his other answers.

She was privy to this, as the assistant to the Avengers. It was in her job description, and yet she felt as if she was intruding. Her fingertips rain over the biro, tracing the dents in her page as she rode to her floor. She exited the car and found herself staring at the detail that stuck out the most.

**_Relationship status?_ **

Of course he was alone. She knew about Peggy Carter. The story went that her voice was the last thing he heard before crashing into the ocean. It was heartbreaking.

Then she saw the single neat, condemning word beneath the question.

**_Unmated_ **

Darcy sighed, her hand holding the paper falling to her side. She’d been alone her whole life, too. When other people were paired up, she’d waited. She was once so full of hope, thinking being an Omega was difficult for some, but she thought she could take it. She read up on Omega experiences, learning over time that people sometimes rose to the occasion like it was destiny, while some others perished alone. She’d so dearly hoped she wasn’t one of the cursed ones. Then her heat cycles dwindled to nothingness, and she thought it would be fine, dismissing what some people called a base form of love.

Alpha, Beta and Omega relationships were condemned in some circles. Plenty of successful marriages had no heat cycles, Darcy’s own family being full of Betas, mostly. She was the only Omega in her generation, and because of her lack of symptoms it was often glossed over.

One of the more famous tales of Omegas was Elizabeth Taylor, and she’d married all the different types of men. There was the rumor that Richard Burton was an Alpha but neither of them were truly mated to one another. Just because someone met their match in heat didn’t mean they were compatible in other parts of life. An Alpha finding their Omega did not spell true love.

Why did Steve list himself as unmated when he was in love with Peggy Carter? That made no sense to Darcy, unless it was some attempt at him not having to explain that particularly painful backstory.

When she reached her apartment, she was tempted to delve into those files she hadn’t read, the ones on his time during the war. Instead she took a shower instead, swallowed her suppressants for tomorrow and went to bed.

-

Perhaps it was the stress of the last few days catching up to her, but by the end of her first week in the Tower, Darcy was exhausted and sluggish.

It was maybe her immune system crashing because she’d let her guard down. She had this problem before as a child, getting sick during the holidays instead of during school days. She hardly spent any time home. She knew she was supposed to value being a healthy person, but she hated school more.

She was intent on seeing the day through, downing half a bottle of water in several greedy gulps after she dry-swallowed a Tylenol. She gasped, wiping the back of her mouth as she tried to decide what to do about lunch.

Currently, she was trying to balance wrangling five people at once. She’d managed to have a polite enough rapport with them all but she liked Natasha the most. She knew what it was like to fight to be taken seriously, and she never seemed to bullshit her.

When the redhead wandered into the kitchens as Darcy stared at the wall, the spy startled her, flashing an apologetic smile a moment later as she went into the fridge to grab a snack.

“You look pale,” she said, and Darcy rubbed her temples, her eyes squeezed shut.

“I am pale.”

“Paler than usual,” Natasha added, turning back with a bunch of grapes. “Have these, since you’re sick. And maybe some protein, if you can stand it. I can make an omelette.”

“You don’t have to…”

Natasha was already getting out some eggs and cheese and Darcy sighed, moving to slump into one of the stools, her chin propped up by a hand. She closed her eyes once more, listening to Natasha move bustling around.

“Hey –”

She glanced up at the familiar voice, seeing Steve in the doorway. She blinked at him, wondering why he looked like he’d frozen solid. Natasha was too busy with her frying pan to notice him straight away.

His eyes widened at Darcy, who felt herself break out in a sweat. He took a couple steps back, his shoulders lifting as he tensed. His eyes slipped to the floor and Darcy watched him retreat.

Natasha managed to catch him moving back down the hallway, his back to them. She frowned, looking at Darcy.

“What was that about?”

Darcy had some idea. A terrible, distinct sinking feeling settled in her stomach and she shivered, closing her eyes as she heard Natasha return to her frying pan, probably confused by what had transpired.

It made was so glaringly obvious why it was imperative that a person who took her job was either an Alpha or a Beta, not an Omega.

Steve Rogers was the Alpha, unattached and unmated. Straight male Alphas of that status were very rare in the first place, but she knew his circumstances put him above others of his kind. Having lost his chance with Peggy Carter when he crashed in the 1940s, only to wake up in 2012 with the libido of an Alpha in his prime would be an ordeal few men could endure. For his sake, and for the team’s sake, an Omega needed to be avoided at all costs, lest his sanity be tested once more.

Darcy sucked in a breath, feeling a trickle of sweat fall down her forehead. She slumped forward, hearing the clatter of Natasha dropping her flipper on the counter and move toward her, her hands grabbing Darcy’s shoulders.

“Darcy. Darcy!”

“I don’t feel so hot,” she whispered, and she felt a tingling overtake her senses.

The world evaporated and she felt as if she’d fallen through the floor. She welcomed it the further she fell, Natasha’s voice disappearing along with the kitchen.

-

As she drifted, she wondered. Did Steve ever dream of a mate like she had for years when he was buried deep in the ice?

Was it possible that his body manifested that fantasy for him, gave him his deepest desires as he waited and waited, the years blending together?

Did he stop hoping long before he was ever found? Did he wake up heartbroken, his body telling him what had transpired before he ran barefoot through the streets of a new world?

-

Darcy took a deep breath, gasping for air, sitting bolt upright, and hands found her arms to steady her.

She was in a hospital bed, the room white, the smell of antiseptics flooding her nose and he wondered how long she’d been out. It was still light outside the window to her left.

Bruce and Natasha sat on either side of her, their faces relieved.

“I’ll get the nurse,” Bruce said, and Darcy lifted her hand to see an I.V. stuck in it, and she rolled her shoulders.

“What happened?”

Natasha didn’t answer until Bruce was out of sight, licking her lips, her eyes scanning Darcy.

“You passed out. They thought it was the flu,” she murmured.

Darcy looked away, swallowing. “I had my shot. Must be a new strain…”

“Your fever was 103.”

“What?” Darcy blurted.

She was left alone to rest once the nurse checked on her. She no longer had a fever but they were worried about her being dehydrated. She stayed for several more hours, contemplating whether or not her instincts were anything to go by.

Her suppressants looked like the real deal. She’d seen Jane take them when Thor was away to avoid any spike of unintended arousal. Darcy had always assumed Cedric was good for it, but if she was wrong, her days of employment were numbered, and she may have pushed Steve to the edge.

She imagined him turning her into someone higher up at SHIELD, calling her despicable. She tried to not feel the shame of it already and failed. She didn’t feel arousal necessarily.

“Perhaps a blood test –”

“No, I don’t consent to that,” Darcy cut in when the doctor came back to her, reading her chart. “I must have picked up something. I think the clerk that served me at the grocery store… the one on the corner after –”

She cut herself off abruptly, and she knew she sounded like she was making it up. She nodded to herself, to pretend she was convinced.

“There may be some other cause of these symptoms,” the doctor said.

“If anything persists, I’ll let someone know,” she said, pulling her blanket off. She shot the doctor a look and he departed, leaving her to change back into her clothes.

She had some control over this. If it was anything to do with Steve catching her scent, she hadn’t succumbed to other parts of her cycle. How had she managed to buy faulty suppressants? She was tempted to call up Cedric and demand he name his supplier, but then there was the chance he’d cut her off for good…

She wrapped herself up when she got back to her apartment, and over the next day and a half, her strength came back.

She didn’t consider it paranoid to assume that someone at SHIELD might suspect she was in heat, and having no blood test as part of her official medical record may save her in the end. She wasn’t about to take that chance, hoping to somehow face it with defiance.

She had control of this. She didn’t feel any pangs of longing, no aching need between her legs. Maybe Steve had eaten something and raced off with a stomach flu. Maybe she’d contracted some virus. Maybe everything was just a coincidence and she’d be fine.

-

The nagging feeling that the world was off-balance still prevailed, and she dressed for the day early Monday morning with her heart pounding in her chest like the blood was too thick for her arteries, her fears barely beneath the surface.

Nothing felt right, but she sipped from her coffee as if all was normal, keeping her tone neutral when the Avengers streamed in and out during the day.

She didn’t see Steve until much later in passing, the distinct adrenaline spike enough to make her stop still when she met him in the hallway outside the gym.

He was covered in a sheen of sweat, his forearms glistening as he dabbed at his face. She waited for it, for her body to cry out as she swooned.

Nothing happened. She blinked, scanning her body for something, anything to prove how much trouble she was in.

Steve’s jaw went tight as he stopped in front of her, recognizing her.

“Darcy.”

“Steve,” she replied. “I meant to ask if you needed any leave requests. Start of the month in a couple of days. I’m trying to figure out –”

“Nah, I won’t,” he cut in, and she clamped her mouth shut. “You can deny me leave.”

It wasn’t in her power to do that, so his wording sounded wrong to her, somewhat pointed. Her lips parted and she looked him over, wondering what had changed.

“What aren’t you saying?” she asked before she could stop herself.

“You’re not in any danger,” he said, and she blinked at him, feeling her face flush at what he was implying.

“What do you mean? I know I’m not in any danger. You’re all psych-evaluated.”

He looked away and then his eyes set on hers again, narrowing slightly, the movement nearly undetectable if she wasn’t staring at him so much.

“You’re an Alpha,” she said, as if it hadn’t been playing on a loop constantly for days like some sickening mantra. She even added a little chuckle like the revelation was an amusing anecdote to her. “I’m a Beta.”

She shrugged a shoulder. The silence between them was taut, Steve’s eyes ducking down to her shoes, his gaze fixed on her left sneaker.

“You drew a star on your shoe?” he murmured.

The change of subject had her stalling, her mind trying to catch up after the abrupt shift, and she felt something stir in the base of her spine as he stared down at the little biro star she’d scrawled there God knows when. His inflection made her lips part, and she wondered if he meant to ask her about it, or perhaps the question had slipped out.

Instead of answering, she rolled her lip between her teeth and waited for his gaze to shift back up, and it happened slowly at first, a steady glide up her legs to her hips until he snapped up to her face.

“So, no leave?” she said, glancing down at her paper, crossing off his name and drawing a zero next to it. “That all?”

“Yeah,” he replied, and there was a hint of a smile on his face, more left unsaid. “Thank you, Darcy.”

She nodded, turning her heel. She walked until she was out of his sight, letting out her breath when she reached the elevators, her thumb smacking the button.

She was attracted to him, not in some primal Omega way, but in the usual everyday hormonal way that had her roll her eyes.

Then she felt a wave of nausea and she wondered if she needed to dash to the restroom, and she left the elevator to slip into the ladies’ room nearby, only to find she’d recovered by the time she got into a stall.

She needed to get a grip. She was going to be around Steve a lot for an indefinite amount of time. She thought about doubling her suppressants, but then reminded herself that she could barely afford them now, and sixteen-hundred was definitely too much for her salary.

Later that night, against better judgment, Darcy was scrolling through porn on her phone, her earphones in as she sipped Merlot.

It was like infiltrating some type of club, seeing the category of Omega from an outsider’s perspective. There was row after row of naked, open bodies, faces contorted to imitate heat cycles. She pressed on a random one, a brunette with golden skin, big lips and big tits.

A man plowed into her, the camera set on his balls for the most part and where he disappeared inside her. Darcy couldn’t see his face, but she could hear them both carrying on like cats fighting and fucking. Her mouth puckered in disgust, and she knew none of it was real.

Most likely they were both on suppressants, doing this because it was a well-known fetish, not that Darcy really approved of being seen that way. She knew she wanted to be desired by a male Alpha, but seeing it played out like this for the camera was unsettling to say the least.

The girl in the porn was making all kinds of sounds, none of them genuine enough for Darcy to believe. The man looked like he was trying to hurt her – and sure, some people were into that, but Darcy felt as though they were playing that up too much for the camera. Alpha/Omega sex wasn’t meant to only be painful. Omegas were built to withstand the physical needs of an Alpha, but it wasn’t as if every Omega was a sucker for pain.

Darcy didn’t really know what she wanted with an Alpha. She’d never slept with one.

That’s what she was embarrassed of the most. Not her dwindling cycle or her perpetual singledom. It was her lack of experience in her Omega role. She only found out she was one when she took a quiz as a teenager. Some of the questions were more obvious than others.

**_When you think about sex, do you long to be touched, or do you touch first? Do you want to be in control? Do you want to be a mixture of the two?_ **

She knew that some people only found out what they were through sex and how little they enjoyed it, and thankfully Darcy was spared from that particular unpleasantness. She’d never been expected to act as an Alpha or Beta for someone else. The sex she had in the past was enjoyable enough, but there wasn’t hyperarousal involved.

_“Uh, yeah, you like that Alpha cock, baby?”_

_“Y-yes! I’m gonna come all over your knot! I’m your little Omega whore!”_

_“Say it again!”_

_“I’m your little Omega whore!”_

The woman began to wail and Darcy crossed out, scrubbing her burning face with her hand. She took a long gulp of Merlot.

“Oh, God…”

-

Darcy sensed Steve before he turned the corner and appeared at the end of the hallway.

That had never happened before. From the research she did last night after giving up on any attempt at enjoying the porn she found, she felt confused more than ever.

Over the centuries, Alpha/Omega courtships were documented as having varying degrees of passion. Some were mild, others went up to intrusive and disruptive, and the more dramatic ones came across as completely false. They read like _Romeo and Juliet_ , dying in each other’s arms when they could not be together. Then Darcy did a deep dive into her Google searches, finding all types of people.

One documentary from roughly ten years ago spoke of women whose personal lives and sexual lives were polar opposites. The infamous “Good Girl” pose was discussed at length as a sexist trope within the wider Omega community. Omegas were obviously not just straight women.

Darcy tried the “Good Girl” pose on the floor by her bed. She sat with her knees under her, her head bowed, her hands flat against her thighs.

She pictured Steve immediately, and she didn’t fight it. She saw his hand come toward her, tilting her chin up to look her in the eye.

Standing in front of the elevator now, she felt her stomach flip, her skin beginning to tingle the closer he got. He stopped beside her, within a foot of her body.

“Good morning,” she murmured, staring straight ahead at the shut elevator doors.

“Is it?” he replied, and she made the mistake of looking at him, and he felt much closer, his eyes passing over her face.

“Why, did something happen?” she asked. “Something I can help with?”

“Unless you got an Uzi in your binder, you’re not gonna be able to help me,” he replied. “We got word of a HYDRA cell cropping up in East Berlin. We’re flying out.”

Darcy’s phone began to buzz and she pulled it out of her jeans back pocket, staring down at the alert. It summarized what he just said, more or less. Avengers were expected to convene prior to departure.

They slipped into the elevator and Darcy hit the button for the _Emergency Access Rooftop_ , before waving her pass over the reader. The doors slammed shut and she felt that familiar wave of nausea.

She swallowed thickly, reminding herself that she was nervous. She was attracted to Steve, which was obvious. It didn’t have to be because he was an Alpha. It didn’t always have to be about her being an Omega, either.

“You alright?” he asked, and she nodded, not making a sound. “You sure?”

She glanced at her binder, clearing her throat.

“No Uzi. Just papers.”

She met his eye and thought maybe he wasn’t what she suspected him to be. He never did agree or disagree when she accused him of being an Alpha. For a fleeting moment, he wasn’t that to her. She wasn’t exposed to the raw power he had. She should have felt relief, but instead she felt so alone.

She felt a tug, and she recognized it as longing, a blush creeping over her. She felt something begin to rise and she was unable to tamper it down, like a sob she couldn’t bite back, and she looked away, sucking in a breath.

“Darcy –”

The doors opened and whatever Steve meant to say fell away as Darcy stalked off to meet with who was already there. Clint and Natasha were dressed in their Kevlar, checking their weapons as Steve disappeared into a closed room at the back.

Darcy had been so caught up in the moment that she hadn’t noticed he wasn’t wearing his tac suit. She put aside her binder, watching the others pack up their tools. Tony arrived via the balcony, the faceplate on his suit lifting for him to wink at Darcy.

“Lewis, you good?”

“Yeah,” she replied, her voice tight. “Little early to fight fascists. They could at least wait until the coffee’s sunk in.”

“They’re pretty selfish that way,” Natasha said, checking the safety on her pistol before putting it away.

Steve was back, placing his shield on his back as he walked, nodding at the others before stopping beside Darcy. His face was sweaty, and the sight of the sheen on his skin sent another wave of nausea though Darcy and she covered her mouth with her fist, pretending to cough.

“Bruce close?” he asked Natasha, who nodded. “Alright. Wheels up in three minutes, let’s go.”

He glanced at Darcy and then looked away. She was seeing what she wanted to see. As far as she could tell by the way he dismissed her, she wasn’t even a tiny blip on his radar.

So that was another Alpha she wouldn’t have. She tried to not think about how her body already began to react when she was left alone once again.

She felt useless and hurt.

-

How did one move on from a mate? From what Darcy’s research showed, the effort was tremendous and not everyone survived it. Suicide was not uncommon.

She couldn’t picture Steve actually doing that, at least, not because he no longer had his mate. He’d already lived for a few years out of the ice, alone and unmated.

 _“It’s a more base form of love,”_ one sex therapist said in a documentary about anti-Alpha/Beta/Omega courtships. _“You don’t need to be tearing off each other’s clothes and losing your mind over sex to be happy. It’s a toxic way to live.”_

For a sex therapist, they seemed pretty keen to shame other people for the way they loved. It left a bad taste in Darcy’s mouth. She wasn’t about to join some abstinence movement to try to control her urges. She was already on suppressants.

 ** _Why are my suppressants not working?_** She Googled the question and got a series of articles that only scared her. Documented cases of people unable to stop themselves from destroying marriages, engagements being called off.

**_Are you experiencing any heightened senses, such as smell or hearing? This may be due to a heat cycle pushing through suppressants._ **

Just her fucking luck. She has no heat cycles and then she has one that can’t be medically dulled? Darcy let out a huff and groaned plaintively, rolling onto her side in bed as she scrolled through more articles, none of them assuring her.

Her ears had been ringing since Steve left with the others hours ago. She wasn’t able to stomach any food because it all made her stomach churn.

-

Her phone buzzing next to her ear woke her. She fumbled it, unlocking it and putting it to her ear. She should have checked the display but in her haste she forgot to.

“Hello?”

“You alone?”

She sat up, her stomach dropping at the sound of Steve’s voice, so calm and quiet. She glanced around in the dark, kicking aside her blanket.

She couldn’t smell as well as earlier. Perhaps she was through the worst of it.

“Why, what happened?”

“Nothing. We’re back, Nat said she sent messages through earlier.”

Why did Darcy only now respond to her phone? Something inside her told her to answer her phone. She’d begun to remember her dream, at least the very edges of it. Her heart had been racing, and she’d been ripped away from the whirling panic of it. She’d been searching for something.

“You alone?” he asked again, and Darcy made a vague sound. “We should talk.”

She took the phone away from her ear and saw the time.

“It’s four in the morning, can it wait?”

“I don’t think so.”

 _I’m not going to have sex with you_ , was her thought. She needed to draw a line in the sand. If he knew she was an Omega, it didn’t mean the world had to fall away and all sense was lost.

She shook her head, irritated by the assumption she made.

“What is it?”

“Meet me downstairs.”

“Steve!” she said, but he’d hung up, and she let out a sigh before putting her phone aside.

She threw on the same clothes as yesterday, brushing her teeth and using a brush haphazardly before taking the elevator to the common room, and she felt it again, that tug.

“What’s this urgency about?” she said, walking toward him, seeing his back turned to her.

When he shifted to face her, and she could see he wasn’t in the best state, visibly exhausted. His eyes dipped for a second to her drawn on sneakers and his brow quirked.

“We can’t avoid each other,” he said, and Darcy nodded.

“Yeah… yeah, I know,” she murmured. “I should quit.”

“We… are talkin’ about the same thing, right?” he asked, and Darcy saw his body shift.

He recognized his hesitancy. He wasn’t sure if he was allowed to be any closer to her. There was a safe distance between them.

“I… I don’t want to know what you think of me,” she went on. “I understand, though. If you hated me for this.”

“For… lying?” he said, and she nodded. “I used to lie all the time when I tried to get enlisted.”

She felt her lips quirk in a small smile and he copied her.

“I told SHIELD I was a Beta because I haven’t… acted like an Omega for years,” she said, and she saw his eyes fall to her mouth.

She felt a warmth spread all over her stomach, along with butterflies.

“I lied because I had no idea where else I was gonna get a job,” she murmured. She looked away, shaking her head. “I’m… sorry. I can’t jeopardize anything. It’s so wrong.”

Her eyes swung back to meet Steve’s.

“I can’t imagine what it was like for you, waking up without your mate,” she said.

Steve blinked a couple times. “I didn’t have a mate before.”

Darcy frowned, tilting her head. “What? What about Peggy?”

“Peggy was an Alpha,” he said.

She looked away again, letting out a breath of a laugh. It made so much sense. People weren’t encouraged to profile one another, but some people were more obvious than others. Leaders tended to be Alphas, and Peggy was the archetype for a strong female.

“You never mated with her…”

“Have you ever tried to mate with someone who wasn’t your match?” he asked, and Darcy shook her head. “It’s usually impossible. I thought we’d be the exception.”

“It didn’t work.”

“We were happy together, but it never happened,” he said, and Darcy nodded. “I couldn’t be an Omega, and she couldn’t be _my_ Omega.”

“Then I _have to_ leave,” Darcy said. “I can’t be around you if my suppressants aren’t working. I shouldn’t even be talking now.”

“They work,” he said, and she frowned. “I just have enhanced senses because of the serum.”

Darcy closed her eyes, passing a hand over her face. If he was enhanced, it was no wonder that the suppressants had stopped her from blocking her own urges, too.

“You can get me a job,” she said, taking a deep breath. Her eyes stung. “You can ask I be transferred. We don’t have to say why, but… I can’t do this. We can’t do this.”

He bit his lip, looking away. He gave a little nod, and she sucked in another breath, her chest feeling tighter.

“I didn’t mean to – I mean, I was arrogant,” she mumbled. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t,” she heard him reply, his voice rough. “Don’t be sorry.”

She didn’t want to cry but she was unable to stop it, even when she glanced at the ceiling, waiting for each emotional blow to pass.

“I’m,” she heard Steve begin, and she looked at him, seeing him watching her intently. “I’m from another time, I know, but I think the sentiment still stands. You should be… earned.”

“Earned?” she repeated. Her voice cracked.

“I can’t just take,” he went on. “I’m able to, sorta, control it a lil’. At least, I thought so.”

She could see he was trembling. She hadn’t allowed herself to linger on his body, afraid that doing so would push her over the edge. She sniffled, swiping at her eyes.

“Could be worse,” he added. “But I can’t take it from you, without – without you wanting me back.”

She nodded, grimacing. “Yeah, and… you don’t want me.”

“I’m tryin’ not to.”

She turned away then, and she hated that the Brooklyn twang was making her want to stay with him, listen to him talk, hear him breathe, smell his perspiration. She could feel it sinking into her skin, the urge to touch. Soon, she’d be vibrating with need, her thighs slick with arousal. She didn’t want that indignity.

“God, I can’t breathe!” she gasped, and she stepped back, her eyes still closed.

-

Any time she was around him, an illness seemed to set in. It was the same with Steve. The longer they were around one another, the worse the situation would be.

She didn’t want to be another story of unresolved sexual tension. She didn’t want to be pathetic or pitied. She refused to be a victim of her own circumstances.

She didn’t want to hate being an Omega.

-

It wasn’t lust. If it was, she would have slept with him already or found another Alpha on a dating app, perhaps Craiglist if she was truly desperate.

She was afraid of Steve because she knew he was unmated, and there was the possibility of their bond being something more. She didn’t want to risk her feelings being unreciprocated.

-

It took three days for her to recover fully. Steve didn’t seem to be anywhere close by, and she was thankful for his avoidance.

She spent the days after their last encounter restocking the common room supplies, checking off boxes, filling in paperwork.

She went to the gym on the third night, putting her earphones in while she sat on a bike, pedaling to the sounds of dubstep, her heart pounding in her chest in reply.

She finished after twenty minutes of steadily increasing her pace, panting as she recovered with her hands on her hips, closing her eyes as she waited for her breathing to return to normal.

She shivered, pausing her music. She glanced around behind her, seeing the gym empty.

“JARVIS, switch off the lights,” she whispered.

She slipped off the bike, moving backwards until she hit the wall, her hand clamping over her mouth. She went still, squeezing her eyes shut.

Her instinct was to run but she froze in place, listening out. It had to be him. She heard it, the footsteps of someone moving down the hallway. Soon, he’d turn into the gym and see no-one there.

She felt it, the pang that would have made her stumble if she hadn’t already anticipated it. The knee-buckling arousal that made an Omega cry out. She gnawed at her lip, suppressing the grunt that tried to escape.

She had to wait it out. Hiding was cowardly, but she knew it was better than taunting him further. She only wished he’d given her some type of sign that he was trying to fix the problem of her leaving, because so far she hadn’t heard back from any of the jobs she’d applied for.

Blinking in the dark, she knew she wasn’t alone.

She felt like she’d been there before. It was too familiar, the shift in the air, the way her skin prickled. She thought about taking a step, trying to run, but all that fell away when she heard him speak.

“I can smell you. I can… hear you breathing.”

His words knocked her down, and she knew she only heard him because of the deadly quiet she’d created.

“JARVIS –”

“No, Steve, don’t!” she cried.

The tenuous hold she had on the situation was gone, the room flooded with light, and she froze in place. Steve had done the same, blinking at her with wide eyes, the beads of sweat on his hairline, his body shaking. He drew in a sharp breath, his eyes landing on her chest.

“Jesus.”

“I was working out,” she whispered.

He gulped. Darcy felt herself shiver, watching his throat work. His took a step, and Darcy watched.

She tried not to think of all the clichés in the stories. Steve stalking her like some kind of wild animal, her being trapped like a frantic bird in a cage. She wanted him. God, she wanted him so much and he hadn’t touched her, he hadn’t spoken to her in days.

“Please,” she said, and his eyes met hers, his lips parting. “Please, Steve.”

“Tell me to go,” he said. “Tell me to leave.”

He got himself down to the gym. He had already tried so hard to stay away. This wasn’t fair, but she didn’t want him to leave.

Wouldn’t it feel better to never had tasted what it was like to be with an Alpha? She could still walk away.

But an absence of feeling, the absence of belonging, wasn’t that far worse?

She saw him close his eyes, his jaw tensing. She watched him fight it with everything he had, and she hated how empty it made her feel, knowing he would choose to be alone if she asked him to.

“Steve, I want you.”

He flew to her, and Darcy gasped, his scent flooding her senses. She felt dizzy when he met her hips with his own, and she was lifted up, their eyes locked.

His cheeks were flushed, and she wrapped her legs around his waist, their faces close enough that she could feel his breath on her lips.

“I haven’t – I mean, I’ve never been with an Alpha,” she whispered, looking at each of his eyes.

His firm grip on her waist as he pressed her into the wall made her flood with fresh arousal. She flushed, seeing his pupils dilate.

“What’re you waiting for?” she whispered.

“I haven’t been with an Omega, either,” he murmured.

“Oh.”

She lifted a hand, reaching to touch his face, her fingers gliding down to cup his jaw. She felt him shiver, his eyes black.

“Can I -?”

Darcy kissed him, his question cut off. It was tight-lipped but made her point, and he groaned, taking over in an instant, his hot tongue pushing between her lips and sweeping inside her mouth.

She’d never been kissed like this before. Had people kissed like this before? How arrogant was she to believe that it was something they might have invented themselves?

He sucked the breath out of her, his hands in her hair, hers in his, their kissing frantic. It was everything built up and spilling over, their hunger undeniable.

“What do I smell like?” she whispered, before he cut her off with another smothering kiss, rocking her up the wall.

“Honey… you smell like honey,” he breathed, and they broke apart.

Darcy wet her lips, both of them panting.

“Where can we go?” she whispered, and he finally pulled her off the wall, carrying her toward the bathroom.

She didn’t care. If it was anyone else, she’d tell them to find somewhere decent, but decency had nothing to do with it. She could feel him shuddering into her, his hand locking the door behind them while he sucked on her lower lip.

He ducked to kiss her neck when he boxed her into another wall, Darcy’s hands moving to the button of his jeans.

“I want it, I want it,” she panted, and he pulled back to look down between them, both of them panting. She gave a short laugh he echoed, both of them sounding giddy. “I’m trying so hard I can’t get the zipper –”

He obliged, undoing his fly and kissing her again on the mouth, both of them moaning as their tongues glided together, Darcy’s hand reaching into his underwear.

“Hey, hold on, hold on,” he whispered his hand coming down to touch her wrist.

“Are you really asking if I’m sure?” she said, and he tilted his head, a smirk forming.

“You have no idea where I’ve been,” he retorted, and she flashed a grin.

“I’m not going to get _pregnant_ , Steve,” she said. “I’m on the pill. And I’m clean.”

“How long until those – _suppressants_ – wear off?” he bit out, Darcy’s hand squeezing the hard length of him. He gave a little groan as she began to stroke him.

She pulled him further out of his underwear, admiring what she was working with, thick, uncut and leaking at the tip. His cock was flushed and standing proud, twitching in her hand when she ran her thumb over the crown.

“An hour, maybe two,” she said, her eyes trained on his face for any reactions. “I take them at night.”

“Don’t take ‘em again,” he hissed, and he moved to kiss her again, rough and possessive.

He took and took from her until she had to pull back for a breath, her hand still stroking him, and then he took hold of her leggings.

“Take these off.”

She obliged, her skin feeling hot. If they were like this with suppressants, she could only imagine what it would be like without them.

He helped her pull down her underwear, Darcy’s breath hitching as Steve’s eyes changed, and she was spun around, her hands lying flat against the wall.

“C’mere,” he whispered, though he was right behind her, reaching for her by the hips, and she turned her head to the side to see him kneeling.

“Oh, my God,” she whispered, and she felt his mouth nip at her upper thigh before he leaned in to taste her.

It was almost too much. She was hypersensitive down there, arousal and sweat already gathering, and she felt the mess he lapped up, the sounds obscene that filled her ears.

“You drip like honey, too,” he murmured, moaning a second later, one of his hands gliding up to find her clit.

She came, and it wasn’t nearly enough, her eyes misting as she whimpered, Steve’s face pressed up into her, rubbing her through it.

“Steve,” she mumbled into the wall, and his mouth left her, only for him to grab her by the jaw and jerk her backward to kiss her, her musk on his face and tongue.

There was a fumbling and then she felt him rub up against her cunt with the tip of his cock, and he lifted her, his hand sealing over her throat.

“Why do I feel like you could kill me?” she slurred, and he began to push inside her, filling her as they both gasped.

Her hands scrambled up the wall, unable to find purchase, until one arm craned behind her to grab a handful of his hair. It hurt, to be yanked and pushed around, but she wanted it this way, she wanted to feel nothing but him in and all around her.

She could smell him better now, his scent vaguely sweet and sweaty. His sweat was getting her off, not his cock, at least not for a couple seconds until he was balls-deep inside her.

“I _could_ kill you,” he rasped.

“Worse ways to go,” she said, and he began to rock, and she squeezed him, encouraging him.

He pulled back halfway before slamming into her, her back arching on impact as she cried out. He kept her still, his hips fast and sharp, his panting in her ear.

His hand moved up to cover her mouth as she began to whine, and he took her in long strokes that had them both shuddering. He began to move faster, rutting without finesse, but it was intoxicating, her eyes falling shut as she surrendered.

“I want you,” he whispered, and she nodded. “Tell me –”

“I’m yours,” she whispered, when he took his hand away.

She could only hear their panting breaths and the way his body smacked into hers, and she was sloppy wet from him, clamping down –

 _“God,”_ he groaned, and he moved impossibly faster, and it had to be the serum that made her lose all sense of time and place, his fucking a frenzy of primal need –

She screamed, losing vision as he made her and destroyed her, and something stretched impossibly wide, a mystery place inside her.

It was his knot expanding, claiming her, marking her.

“Mine,” he growled, and he came, going still. “ _Mine_ …”

It was like the fever she had days ago, the one that made her pass out in the kitchen. Except this time, she was already held and she only slumped forward into the wall for a second before he pulled her away, his arms wrapped around her.

They heaved together, Darcy’s vision blurry as she came to, and she tingled all over, their foreheads pressing together.

“Have you ever…?”

“No,” he sighed. “It’s never been like that before…”

He tucked her under his arm, kissing her sweaty forehead as Darcy fought to keep her eyes open. She glanced down and saw the mess sliding down her thigh.

“Do you think… somebody heard us?” she murmured, and she felt Steve’s eyelashes brush her cheek.

“Probably,” he said. “I’d say your secret’s out…”

In the flurry of feelings, scents and confessions, she hadn’t considered any of that, and it seemed Steve hadn’t, either.

Steve cupped her cheek, stopping the snowballing that had begun and she met his eye.

“I won’t let you get written up or transferred, okay?”

“Jesus, talk about nepotism,” she muttered, but they both smiled.

She pressed a kiss to his lips, feeling his cock twitch against her thigh. She shifted, glancing around the bathroom, spotting the mold in one corner by the shower.

“Can we move this to a bed?” she whispered.

He grinned down at her, and he looked younger, his skin glowing. He leaned even closer to whisper in her ear:

"When I can move my legs again."

**Author's Note:**

> [my Tumblr](http://grimeysociety.tumblr.com/)


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